Kerala is witnessing a mad rush for vaccines against Covid-19, especially by elderly people, leading to utter chaos at vaccination centres across the state.
On Monday, several aged people even fainted after waiting for a long time under the scorching sun at a mass vaccination centre in the state capital Thiruvananthapuram.
The government authorities said that even those given token with a specific time for the vaccination were reaching the vaccine centres in the early hours of the day. This seems to be due to vaccine shortage concerns.
Health Minister K K Shailaja said that special arrangements would be made for the aged and differently-abled people at the vaccination centres. Guidelines in this regard were issued.
Meanwhile, there were allegations that even as time slots for vaccination were given online, some vaccination centres used to issue separate tokens in the morning and this mismanagement led to the mad rush at vaccination centres early in the day.
Owing to the vaccine shortage, the fresh allocation of time slots for vaccinations was also temporarily stopped. The state now has a stock of only four lakh vaccines.
So far, 58 lakh people in the state have received the first dose of the vaccine, while 10.45 lakh have received the second dose.
The state government was also initiating steps to purchase vaccines. Top government officials are holding talks with vaccine manufacturers.